Sunday, December 19, 2010

Every year we have a Ladies Cookie and Craft Exchange with my work. I have to say I love the event and look forward to it. We choose our person in secret...which always ends up to sneaky behavior and I think that's the part I love the most ;) This year I got my good friend Jackie....with some conspiracy efforts our talented photographer in the office arranged for family pictures. My main goal was to do something for her and her lovely daughters.....and this is what I came up with. The girls shadow box I used my imagine to print the background, and some butterfly accents with the imagine more cartridge. I then kept it pretty simple but I love how it turned out. For Jackie and the girls together....I did some glass etching with the Home Accents cartridge and decided to put a vinyl accent piece next to it. The rest of the box I kept simple. I even broke out my poetry cobwebs and did a poem....My honey helped me with the watermark butterfly behind the poem.....I see more shadowboxes in my future...I just love them as gifts!

I am LOVING my Imagine.....I couldn't resist I had to get one. The first one I received had to be replaced but now.....I'm in heaven :) Jayce has a birthday party today so I made her friend Becca a cute purse to hold her gift card and a card for the birthday girl. I used the Best Friends cartridge....I would have liked to use pop up squares but I discovered my son (still figuring this one out) used the last of them last week? I guess my craft table isn't safe from anyone in my family! I thought it was a cute first project to get my feet wet....There is a slight learning curve for sizing and flooding the images but really I can tell I am going to be in love with this machine...My favorite part is that I used my old Calligraphy cartridge for the font and was able to flood the letters with any print/color I wanted....Thank you Provo Craft for incorporating the old cartridges....How awesome!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

I was on a hunt.....My daughter wanted a desk in her room....I scoured websites and stores....saw prices of over $200 (YIKES) and low prices with cheap materials.....and still I did not see something that would fit in with my tomboy little girl who requested "cool, and could you fit camouflage in there too mom?" I was at a lost....so I did what any mom would do...I garage saled and found a plain nice wood desk (old I'll give you that) for.....$10. I knew in it's present condition it would never be acceptable so a couple bottles of black spray paint, silver metallic paint lightly brushed over all the surfaces, new hardware....and it looks like a new desk! Now....for the camo.....I went to Lowes and found peg board.....and did my best camo motif....added some peg board baskets and she's got a functional desk area! (Maybe she'll stay off of my craft table now.....maybe not :)).

To round off the room for my creative girl.....white dry erase paint.....easy...bought at Lowes for about $30...taped off the board.....and went to town....I cut Idea Board in vinyl with my cricut....Now she can write down all the things that run through her head :)

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Well....my resolution is to be an active blogger :) This summer has ran away from me....I've done a lot of projects, and have had no time to blog. Hopefully all of this will change. My coworker Katie is about to embarq on her new life with her boyfriend in Kentucky....

It's always sad to see someone you care for leave but I couldn't let her go without a sending off gift. I decided to do something radical and make my own picture frame....First I went to countless antique stores and just saw nothing that I was looking for. Frank suggested we go buy the wood...so off to Lowes we went! I bought two pine boards and went to town! I needed help from Frank to cut to size and dremel the inside of the frame.....The rest was all me :) After sanding the wood I spray painted a base coat of sandy bronze. After that dried I sanded it some more and mixed a metallic/white paint mixture to lightly brush over the wood....dry...sand....lightly lightly brushed light purple paint over it and you guessed it dried and sanded again....The result I love ....looks weathered ....hopefully you can see that through the pictures. For the pictures themselves I used vinyl, brads, embossing....whatever I thought meshed well....the end result I love and I hope Katie does too...Best of luck to her in Kentucky!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Well.....I did it! I survived the wedding :) The entire process was exhausting and stressful but the part I will always savor was that Frank and I did everything together.....from the paper for the thank you favor cards, to the stones we put in the centerpieces! Heck he even helped me make the bouquets.....So here's my DIY centerpieces.....They cost me $7 each and were super easy.....I bought the glass at Wal-Mart and then took a trip to the dollar store....Frank and I love the outdoors and we wanted a nature theme...I found the rocks and the green accent pieces at the dollar store...So simple. The favors were etched glass with a thank you card.....Overall I love how they turned out! We also used Verterra plates, they're palm leaves that have fallen to the ground and pressed into biodegradable dinnerware....Love them!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Here is the second one of the night :) (Has to be done inbetween soccer games, laundry, dinner, doggy walks, etc etc etc) I had a lot of fun this one.....No real plans for it when I bought the wood but then it just unfolded as I went along....

First I sanded and painted the wood white. I made sure to do a few coats. Then I extreme purple glittered all over the white paint (Love the extreme glitter paint!)

I can't take the credit for the next part...I was purusing some blogs and cam across Andreas Blog: http://andreascardsandscrap.blogspot.com/2010/05/vinyl-on-scrapbook-paper.html ....Her vinyl on scrapbook paper inspired me! I had bought some cute Recollections paper at Michaels and was just itching to put it to good use....So I mod podged the paper on top of the painted wood and let it dry....I decided since the paper was so pretty to keep it simple and cut the simple word inspire out with the Home Accents cartridge....I just love this so much I'm looking for a spot to hang it in my house...lol Of course it is another gift...

Well, it's wedding time (ahhhhhh).....I've been busy making gifts for all of our wonderful friends that are helping us out at the wedding. Two of my good friends are cooking, a bridesmaid is making our cake, all of these great and wonderful people in our lives are making our day so special....In order to thank them I wanted to add a personal touch. So here's the first one! I love quotes, and one of my favorite gifts that I received is a wood painted plaque with a great Mother Theresa quote...I know God wouldn't give me anything I couldn't handle....I just wish he didn't trust me so much!So I was in ....Michaels (yes again....sigh).....and found this wood plaque, and this is what I decided to do with it. First I sanded it down, and spray painted it with a metallic spray paint, called Canyon Brown (or something like that hhehehehe). After a few base quotes I sprayed this neat crackle top coat on it. I love this stuff! The only thing I will say is spray evenly and shake a lot fist.After it dried I cut out black vinyl letters with the calligraphy cartridge from one of my favorite quoteist Carl Sundberg....Nothing happens unless first we dream....I decided to add a few embellishments and sealed with some mod podge....Over all I think it came out great! And now...I think I want one for me :) Hope everyone is doing well...I have a feeling I'll be posting a lot more soon....

Sunday, April 18, 2010

My co-worker is in a play group here in town and they're having a fundraising casino night! She asked me to template a favor for them and this is what I came up with.....I still have time to tweak it so if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it!

On a side note: I've had nooooooooooo time to craft lately and it's been depressing....with the wedding in a month it's time to kick it into high gear! Hopefully I'll be posting that fun stuff soon!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Well it's been a day of being snowed in again....and finally we got special leave at work (although it wasn't as bad as it's been but who's complaning?). So I got to finish up the favors for the shower all the bags got ribbon and martha stewart punches (I just love her punches! These were even better b/c they were on sale). Then it was the "Shoe Task"....my coworker asked me to make some kind of wall decoration with a shoe for the shower....hmmmmm this took a bit but here's what I came up with! I used a few cartridges for this just because I could....I love the shadow calligraphy letters....so those were all cut at 2". The shoes came from the wedding solutions cartridge and the city from Plantin Schoolbook....I love that one! It probably is b/c I'm from NY but...its alright to be biased sometimes :)

I then just added some brads and rhinestones and a pretty ribbon.....easy and I like the way it turned out.....Now my last task for this wedding is etching the bride and grooms glasses....there are so many choices I'm having a hard time deciding...traditional bride and groom? Or something a bit modern? Any suggestions?

Sunday, February 7, 2010

I bought these wooden 2 x 2 blocks for $1 each and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. Today after staring at them for awhile I had an epiphany! I needed to make a valentines gift for my fiance and I wanted to do something for his desk at work that wasn't the typical picture frame. I sanded the little guys first b/c they were a little rough. I had bought some glossy paint at Michaels when it was on sale. Now the funny part was I thought I bought red and silver so I started to paint with the red first.....and then I thought Ok I'll use half red and half silver...well I didn't read the bottle very good because it was extreme glitter not silver. I have never been so happy I made a mistake! After the red paint dried I coated them with the extreme glitter.....

Then It was time to decorate! I've been itching to use my vinyl again so I cute out the H loves F with the Wild Card Cartridge and the XO with the Sweethearts cartridge. I wanted to say that is my favorite side but really I love all of them....I also used the Wild Card and Sweethearts cartridge to cut our wedding date out and the rings.....

The pictures I resized in adoble..used permenant spray adhesive to attach them to the blocks and then sealed everything with mod podge. I also used some Valentines Day stickers I had gotten from targets $1 bin (woo hoo for the $1 bin) on a few sides. I love the way this turned out. I thought a lot about putting the pictures to size on the block but I just loved the red paint and glitter so much I wanted it to be seen on all sides.....Of course I'm no good at being patient so I had to give it to him already....lol

Saturday, February 6, 2010

To round up my shower favors I made this picture frame for the bride. The picture didn't come out to great but hopefully the idea is there. I used the Stretch Your Imagine Cartridge for the champagne glasses, I just liked those ones better than the Sweethearts. I cut it out with the contact paper. I know provo craft says use vinyl and then transfer tape but they're so expensive! So I tried regular old contact paper at $6 for a large roll and it works great! Once you apply the contact paper on the glass it's good to smooth it over with the side of a credit card to make sure it's flat against the glass. I found putting generous amounts of Armor Etch is great and leaving it on for 10 minutes is good enough. The Mr and Mrs was from the Sweethearts cartridge. Remember to flip the words! I used the card feature to cut out the words since you need the cut out pattern anyways. This works much better than trying to use the regular wording. I love love love how this came out.....The black picture frame makes it hard to see but it came out amazing and the best part is the picture frames were on clearance at Michaels for $2! Since I've spent more money than I've wanted to there lately this was nice.....

What a great day to spend in the snow! We've had over two feet today and yesterday.....

My coworker is having her fourth baby. She has two boys and one girl and this one will be....a girl! We're going to give her a surprise shower and I came up with this card using the Wild Card Cartridge....I plan on doing the inside in Photoshop for the wording. I'm so excited it really came out cute! Since this is her fourth child we plan on setting up a round robin dinner for her....each person will sign up for a night so her and her husband have one less thing to worry about...did I mention all of her kids are under 5? So they're going to be busy!

Well when I bought my cricut I couldn't wait to glass etch...I didn't know what I wanted to etch but I knew that was something I was going to try. So when I saw shadow boxes 50% off at Michaels this weekend....I was excited :)

The moment I took this picture of my honey and the kids on one of our camping excursions I knew it was special and that it would hang somewhere in our house. So here's what I did

Used the serenade branch icon and cut it out with contact paper

Placed the contact paper over the frame where I wanted it to lay

Placed armor all over the spot for 10 minutes

Scraped off the excess and washed it off!

I also use some vinyl for the family lettering....

Here is the finished product I can't believe how easy it was and how awesome it turned out

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Well I thought that I would try something new.....After all this year has been a total year of change. In the past five years I've graduated from grad school, went through a horrible divorce, moved my two children and I to a new state where I knew no one to start a new job, met a wonderful and amazing man, built a house, moved in with him, and now (gasp) I'm planning a wedding...How did all of this happen? Here's me trying to figure it out!

So there is one thing I love that is new in my life and that is MY CRICUT! I've always loved to scrapbook but this little machine is my new love (sorry honey....but you just can't compete in cutting). I decided I'm going to make my own wedding invitations...our wedding will be completely DIY .....simple and for the four of us (my honey and the other two loves of my life...my kids). So here is my attempt of playing....I have plans to put the Marry Me in silver lettering and the heart in pink....this is a work in progress and it's only attempt #1...advice, ideas,critiques I'm ready for them!